


The Thing About Pronouns

by rimahadley



Category: DCU (Comics), Young Justice (Comics)
Genre: Conlangs, Gen, Nonbinary Character, Queer Gen, Trans Character, assumptions of cis-ness being proven wrong, i am not actually a linguist i'm so sorry, i might have gotten kind of caught up in creating at least some spoken Interlac
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-07 11:37:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6802129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rimahadley/pseuds/rimahadley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...is that they're a lot more complicated than you might think, especially in the 30th century.</p><p>Bart teaches his friends some emergency Interlac.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Thing About Pronouns

“I have a _great_ idea,” announced Bart Allen, spinning around in his chair in the Justice Cave, fingers tapping on the table too fast for the eye to see. The other members of Young Justice looked at him somewhat warily. Bart's “great ideas” ranged from “genuinely cool and fun time that no one else could have thought of, ever” to “oh god oh god we're going to die, Batman is going to kill us and they'll never find our bodies.”

“What is it, Impulse?” Robin finally asked.

“I should teach you guys Interlac! Or at least the basics, so if you ever get stranded in time you can introduce yourselves and find the Legion of Super-Heroes!”

“That… sounds like a really good idea,” Cassie said, and the rest of the team nodded their agreement. “How do we get started?”

“Okay okay, so I'm going to start by teaching you how to say ‘Hello, my name is’ and then your name and pronouns, and then ‘I don't speak Interlac, I'm looking for the Legion of Super-Heroes.’ So I'd say ‘Gai, sua Bart Allen lo-esk. Mut frelan Interlac, kopa zo Gatre mi Pash-Jutico.’ Except, I wouldn’t actually say that, because I do speak Interlac.”

“Wait a second,” Kon said, “name and pronouns? Why would we need pronouns?”

Bart tilted his head to one side. “Why wouldn't you? I still don't know why people don't do that in this time, it seems really rude to just guess based on appearance and I'm still not actually sure what that has to do with anything even if I am getting better at it and definitely using the right locker room always.”

“Um…” Kon wasn't entirely sure how to respond to that.

“So I'd say ‘Gai, soowa Cissie King-Jones?’” Cissie asked, interrupting the awkward silence.

“Sua, not soowa. It’s more like one sound. Close though! And if you use she/her pronouns it'd be ‘Cissie King-Jones lo-fe.’ The he/him equivalent set is lo-ma. It's easy!”

“Gai, sua Robin lo-ma,” said Robin.

“Yeah, like that!”

“But Bart, you said ‘lo-esk’ when you were introducing yourself, not ‘lo-ma,’” Secret said, fidgeting with a sleeve.

“Yeah, when she was teaching me English Grandma Iris said I should pick either he/him or she/her to use in this time, to avoid confusing people. And I'd only just grown out of child pronouns too! But I've gotten used to it, and pronouns like, work really differently in Interlac so trying to use mine in English would be awkward. I'm not 100 percent sure pronouns is the right word even? But it's the closest one I can think of so I'm going to keep using it for now.”

The members of Young Justice not born in the 30th century stared at each other. They could never mistake Bart for normal, but every now and then they were reminded that Impulse came from a culture very different from 20th century America. It had never really occurred to any of them that you could just pick your pronouns, instead of using the ones that you'd been called since birth.

“What are child pronouns?” asked Cassie.

“For kids who aren't old enough to have picked out at least one pronoun set yet! I was kind of late (relatively speaking) picking mine, I _think_ , although actually come to think of it I'm not really sure? I didn't really have anyone to compare to. I should ask Jenni when she picked hers next time we see each other.” Bart leaned his chair back so far he almost fell out of it. Kon automatically reached out and caught him with one hand, pushing the smaller superhero back upright. “Hey Kon, you try!”

Kon cleared his throat. “Gai… sua Kon-El lo-ma.”

“Gai, sua Cassie Sandsmark lo-fe.”

“Gai, sua Secret lo-fe.”

“Gai, sua Cissie King-Jones lo-fe.”

“Great! Okay, the next part is how you say you don't speak Interlac and you're trying to find the Legion. ‘Mut frelan Interlac, kopa zo Gatre mi Pash-Jutico.’ Literally it's something like ‘Speech have-I-not Interlac, searching-for-I the Legion of Super-Heroes.’ Do you ever notice English has a lot of extra words? It takes a really long time to say anything.”

“Hey Bart,” said Cissie, “do you mind that we use he/him pronouns for you? Is there, like, something else we should use instead?” She didn't know what else that might be, but Bart was her friend. It felt… important, somehow, to ask.

An expression of consideration flashed over Bart's face for a split-second, before he went back to smiling. “I'm fine for now? But if I change my mind I'll let you know.”

It didn't take any of Young Justice very long to memorize the phrases Bart was teaching them, but by the time they had the pronunciation down he had clearly reached the limit of his time spent sitting (mostly) still. With no pressing supervillain attacks or other emergencies, the six teenagers decided to disband for the day. Before Bart could speed off back to Manchester, however, Cissie pulled him aside.

“What's up?” he asked her.

“I was just…” She took a deep breath. “Just, uh, wondering if you could tell me what some of the other Interlac pronoun sets were? Out of curiosity.”

“Sure, Cissie, no problem! There's a lot, though, and I don't know all of them. But I can tell you all the ones I remember? Oh hi Kon! I thought you left already!”

“Actually, um, I wanted to know the same thing as Cissie.” The half-Kryptonian looked distinctly embarrassed, but Bart decided to pretend he didn't notice.

“Okay!” the speedster said brightly. “First, there's the set I use, which is lo-esk…” He continued chattering at his friends, explaining all the different pronouns he could think of, with occasional bits of commentary (“Brainy uses these ones” or “I tried out these for a while, but they just didn't fit, y’know?”). “Anyway,” Bart finished, “those are all the ones I remember for now, but I can let you guys know if I think of more.”

“Thanks, Bart,” Cissie said.

“Yeah, thanks,” Kon agreed.

“No problem! Oh, gotta run! See you later!” He sped off, heading back to Alabama. It had felt nice, getting to teach his friends his native language, even if he'd gotten used to English ages ago. And who knows — maybe one of them really would get stuck in the future! They _were_ superheroes, after all. These things happened. And Kon and Cissie had to seemed to really appreciate the extra pronoun sets he’d taught them, which was cool.

\-----

She wasn't a superhero anymore. This kind of thing wasn't supposed to happen to her. Cissie King-Jones sighed, loudly. Her sudden appearance in the middle of what seemed to be a public park had already started to attract a crowd. Two people in uniforms she really hoped belonged to the Science Police of the 31st century approached her. Time to see if she still remembered her two sentences of Interlac… “Gai, sua Cissie King-Jones lo-veh,” she said brightly. “Mut frelan Interlac, kopa zo Gatre mi Pash-Jutico…”


End file.
